Plankton are tiny and highly diverse marine organisms that can act as indicators for the health and biodiversity of ecosystems in the face of factors such as climate change. In one of the largest studies of its kind, researchers used a technique called ultrastructure expansion microscopy to extensively study the cellular structure of over 200 planktonic marine microbes. The study, recently published in the journal Cell, was part of a plug-in project for the EMBL-led Traversing European Coastlines (TREC) expedition, and takes the first steps towards a planetary atlas of plankton.

A new species of jellyfish has been discovered! Researchers at Tohoku University named this venomous creature Physalia mikazuki, after the crescent moon helmet worn by Sendai’s feudal lord Date Masamune.

The project will combine natural records around the Eastern Hemisphere tropics to better understand monsoon rainfall patterns across Asia, Indonesia and Australia over the last millennium — and how they might look in the future under a changing climate.

Global environmental DNA (eDNA) surveys significantly expand known geographic and ecological niche ranges of marine fish, highlighting current biases in conservation and ecological modeling

Diverse life forms exist on and within the ocean floor. These primarily consist of microbes, tiny organisms that can cope with extreme environmental conditions. These include high pressures and salinities, as well as extreme pH values and a limited supply of nutrients. A team of researchers has now been able to detect microbial life in two newly discovered mud volcanoes with very high pH values. Their findings have been published in the professional journal Communications Earth & Environment.

Marine microorganisms produce large amounts of nitrous oxide, a highly potent greenhouse gas. A Basel-based researcher investigated the exact processes involved during an expedition to the Pacific. The results are important for climate modeling.

A team led by the Institut de Ciències del Mar (ICM-CSIC) has described a sustained and unprecedented decrease in the abundance of marine viruses in the northwestern Mediterranean over the last two decades. The finding, published in the journal ISME Communications, is based on the longest-known time series data on marine viruses to date, from the Blanes Bay Microbial Observatory (BBMO) in Girona.

A new study has revealed that sunlight can transform common synthetic fabrics into tiny plastic fibers that pollute coastal oceans. The findings shed light on how clothing and household textiles contribute to the growing problem of microplastic pollution in marine environments.

A research team from the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has made progress in studying the Shibantan Biota in Yichang, Hubei Province, uncovering the oldest known complex three-dimensional burrow systems to date. Preserved in approximately 550-million-year-old strata, these trace fossils show that complex animal behaviors were modifying the seafloor environment nearly 10 million years earlier than previously thought.